I look at the pile of clothes on the floor. “Lea would know. She always had the right answer—knew the right thing to say to make everything better. If I had died instead of her, she’d know exactly what to do.”
I only half notice Mom flinch because I can’t stop the words pouring out of me.
“She was easier to talk to and easier to love. She was just better than me, and I know that, and I wish I deserved her more. I wish I had appreciated her, and told her I’m sorry, and let her know she was the best fucking sister I could have ever asked for. But I can’t tell her these things, because all I have left are memories. And I have to make sure they’re right. I have to know that I haven’t forgotten anything.”
Mom’s lips quiver. “But . . . why?”
“Because I have to remember all the times I was horrible to her, and all the times I wasn’t. Because the more I think about it, the more I worry I was a really bad sister to her. I think I spent more time being angry and jealous and petty than I did just loving her. And I did love her—I loved her more than anyone could’ve loved her. But I don’t think I showed it enough when she was alive, and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make that up to her. So I need to know—I need to know how much I owe her. I need to know if I failed as a sister.”
Mom chokes out a breath and sucks the air back in like she’s afraid to let her real feelings show. “You didn’t fail her, Rumi. She loved you, so much.”
“I know she loved me. I’m just not sure she knows that I loved her.” I shake my head and try to find Mom’s eyes. “She said my name right before she died. It—it felt like she was trying to save me.”
The color drains from Mom’s face. “What?” I think her voice cracks, but it’s so quiet I can hardly hear her.
“I heard her say my name. And I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the way she said it. Like she was choosing me, or trading her life for mine. And I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to repay that kind of love. How do I ever show my gratitude? How do I make sure I don’t waste my life, so that she won’t have wasted hers?”
For a moment, Mom looks like she’s on another planet. And then her eyes snap to mine for the first time in days, and something feral takes control of her face. “I loved her too, you know. If I could give my life to keep her alive, I would in a heartbeat.”
I don’t know why Mom’s words hurt so much, but they do. Maybe because I’m the only daughter left, and she’s still telling me how much she loves Lea instead of telling me she loves me, too. Maybe it’s because I poured my heart out to her, and instead of comforting me she’s telling me she’d rather die to make everything better than just be my mom.
Maybe it’s because my jealousy of Lea and my fear that Mom loved her better all feel like they’re coming true.
And I snap.
“You might’ve loved Lea, but not as much as I did. You weren’t around enough to know her the way I knew her. And I’m sorry you lost your favorite daughter, but I’m still here. I might be too much like Dad, but right now I’m still here. So maybe you’re the one who’s more like him, because you’re the one abandoning me. You’re the one telling me you’d rather trade places with Lea than stay here and be my mother. You’re choosing Lea over me, like you’ve always chosen Lea over me, and right now I hate you for it.”
I don’t know how I get through it all without crying, but I’ve been getting through a lot without crying these days.
Mom looks back at me with a red face and streaming tears that she just can’t stop. But she doesn’t say a word, and eventually she turns away like she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
Thinking about Mom and where she is—safe in Washington, in our home, in our old life—makes me angry.
It’s not fair that she sent me to Hawaii so that she could have time to grieve. So that she could find a way to say good-bye to Lea. What about my grief? My good-byes? Am I just supposed to put my feelings on hold while Mom figures out hers?
She sent me to a different state, without my piano or my friends or anything at all that’s the least bit familiar to me.
I don’t care if she’s struggling to grieve—at least she’s home.
I push myself up and let my legs dangle over the edge of the bed. I squeeze the sheet between my fingers and release all the air through my nose, but it doesn’t quell the thunder in my chest. It grows and grows like a monster, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stop it.
I don’t want to talk to her. I hate her for leaving me. I hate her for being so selfish. I hate her for not choosing me when I’m all she has left.
I hate her.
I hate her.
I hate her.
The shrill yapping from next door breaks my thoughts. I lift my chin, my body still shaking, and turn my ear toward the window.
The barking echoes through the neighborhood. And even though I should probably be grateful for the distraction from my thoughts about Mom, I can’t stop the scowl that starts at my brow and ends in hard lines around my mouth.
I stomp through the hallway with as much rage as a person can have at midnight and step out onto the balcony at the back of the house. Aunty Ani says it’s called a lanai in Hawaii, which sounds a lot prettier than “balcony,” except Aunty Ani’s view isn’t some gorgeous beach with white sand and cerulean water. Her view is a mess of trees, a chain-link fence, and a forgotten project car in a neighbor’s yard. I’m not sure it deserves to be called a lanai.
When I’m leaning against the railing, I can see Mr. Watanabe’s window to the right. The lights are all turned off, but the television is still on. And somewhere below I can hear Poi trying her best to wake the entire world up.
“Shut your dog up!” I shout as my fingers close over the railing.
The barking continues.
“Seriously, it’s twelve a.m. People are trying to sleep!”
Mr. Watanabe doesn’t appear, but Poi’s barking turns into a desperate whine.
I start to turn around, but Lea stops me. The Lea in my head, stuck somewhere between remembering and forgetting. The Lea it hurts so much to hold on to.
She wouldn’t go back to bed—she’d find out what was wrong with the dog.
Because Lea was good that way. She worried about other people and other things. She’d be concerned about a dog getting through the fence and roaming the neighborhood unsupervised. She’d worry it might get stolen, or worse, hit by a car.
I can picture her here now, prodding me and telling me to go outside.
“It might be hurt,” she’d say. “How would you feel if you were hurt and scared and all alone?”
I bite my lip. I’d say being hurt and scared and all alone probably feels like absolute shit. It would probably make you want to go to sleep forever, because sleep is the easiest escape.
Sighing, I make my way to the front door, slip on a pair of flip-flops—Aunty Ani says they’re “slippahs” in Hawaii—and wander out into the street.
I find Poi near her own fence, whining and clawing at the closed gate she somehow managed to escape from.
“Seriously?” I ask. “What’s the point of breaking out if you just want to be let back in?” I lift the handle, and Poi scurries back toward the house. Just as the gate falls shut, I hear a gruff voice.
“Whatchu doing in my yard?” Mr. Watanabe is standing behind his screen door, his face so worn and sullen I can’t tell if he’s been asleep or not.
I raise my hands in defense. “I wasn’t in your yard. I’m only putting your dog back. She was in the street.”
He stares back at me like he’s angry, and I feel my heart start to pound again. It doesn’t take much these days for the world to feel like it’s closing in on me—like the world is attacking me. So I meet his anger with my own.
“You should be more careful. I mean, she could’ve been hit by a car or something. That’s your friend, isn’t it? You should care more about your friend. You should be making sure she doesn’t die—that she doesn
’t end up alone, and scared, and lost in some place she doesn’t recognize. You should take care of your family.”
At first I don’t know where it all comes from.
And then I realize maybe I do.
Mr. Watanabe doesn’t say anything. He simply watches—stares.
I rub my eyes with my fingers, take a breath, and retreat into the house. I just want to go back to bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aunty Ani points her chopsticks at the food in her Styrofoam to-go box. “You like try beef curry?”
“No thanks,” I say. I rub the back of my knuckle against my eyebrow to get rid of some of the sweat pooling on my forehead. It’s so hot, and Aunty Ani doesn’t have air-conditioning, so we brought our lunch to the beach, hoping the breeze and the water would cool us down.
She shovels another chunk of rice and meat into her mouth and makes a noise. “Ono, you know,” she says, speaking out of the side of her mostly closed mouth.
I eat another bite of macaroni salad and focus on the water creeping up on the beach. We’re sitting beside a palm tree near the border, where the grass becomes a blanket of white sand. There are people in the ocean and people on the shore, but we’re the only ones who seem to have a view of the entire beach.
I look over my shoulder, moving my hair to the other side so it stops blowing in my mouth while I eat. I can see Palekaiko Bay, which, as it turns out, is some kind of resort and not a bay at all. The lanai is painted a pale blue—it’s almost the exact color of the sky—and there are a few people sitting in the dining area eating their lunch from a large buffet table, the smell of barbecue wafting toward us.
Aunty Ani follows my gaze. “You know, they’re always hiring teenagers over the summer break. You could get one summer job. It might keep you busy—keep your mind off things.”
I can’t help the scowl that takes over my face. “I don’t want a job. I don’t want to be here at all.” I want to be back in Washington with my piano, where everything felt unnatural and familiar all at the same time. Where it felt wrong not to see Lea everywhere. Where feeling nothing was starting to feel normal.
It’s different in Hawaii. I feel different. I’m in a constant state of total and utter rage. I feel like the rest of me is on pause—like my soul took a vacation, so that it wouldn’t have to deal with everything buried beneath my anger. And maybe that’s self-preservation, but I can’t write without my soul. I can’t finish our song if all I can see is fire and red. If I try to reach for my words—for my feelings—I’m too afraid they’ll burn me.
And I’m scared it means I won’t be able to find my way back to the music ever again. I’m afraid my ability to write might have died with Lea.
Aunty Ani nods and it feels like a quick surrender. “It was only a suggestion. Thought you might like some pocket money.”
“I don’t need money. Mom left me plenty of it, remember? Probably so she doesn’t have to feel guilty about not being here,” I say curtly.
Aunty Ani’s body stiffens. She lets her to-go box fall into her lap, and she presses her lips together while she puts her sentence together in her head. “There isn’t a person in the world who could love their child any more than your mother has loved you girls,” Aunty Ani says suddenly. “She’d be here if she could. I hope you know that.”
A memory
There are butterflies in my stomach. No, not butterflies. Wasps. Hundreds of wasps, stinging me from the inside, throwing themselves around my organs until I want to clutch my stomach and squeeze them still.
Lea’s guitar is over her shoulder. She takes my hand. “I’m nervous too.”
I tilt my head back and breathe through my nose. “I shouldn’t be nervous. I’m never nervous.” I look back at her seriously. “This is Mom’s fault. Why did she have to tell me she was coming? I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
Lea peeks behind the curtain. Amanda Meyers is still onstage singing a Katy Perry song. She’s okay, but she got Kevin Harris and Robbie Garcia to be her backup dancers, and they’re the best dancers in our junior high school. The auditorium sounds like a Justin Bieber concert.
“You don’t need to worry. Mom still isn’t here,” Lea says.
“What?” I say, startled, leaning over her head and peering into the crowd. Lea’s right. Mom’s not here. I know because she spent all night making the most embarrassing sign in the world—a giant banner that said TEAM RUMI AND LEA, which doesn’t make any sense because it’s a middle school talent show. There aren’t any “teams” because there aren’t any winners. It’s a glitzed-up assembly—a chance for students to show off and for parents to brag.
But the sign was at least five feet wide, with green and blue glitter and fuzzy cotton balls in every color of the rainbow surrounding each letter. I think Mom used an entire bottle of glue to finish it.
I don’t see the sign, which means Mom isn’t here. She wouldn’t have left it at home, even though we told her repeatedly that her artwork was going to humiliate us, because that’s kind of Mom’s thing. She likes embarrassing us. I think it makes her feel like she’s on the inside of one of our jokes, which she rarely is because she’s rarely home.
Today’s a big deal. It’s the first time Mom has ever had the time off work to come and see us perform together. It’s a big deal for her to be here. The biggest deal, even.
I pull away from the side of the stage, feeling the wasps dropping one by one. It’s not my stomach that hurts anymore—it’s my heart.
“Maybe she forgot the sign?” Lea asks beside me, her finger tapping the drum of her guitar nervously.
I shake my head. We don’t say anything else until Mrs. Hernandez calls our names and we set ourselves up in the middle of the stage. I take a place on the piano bench, and Lea perches herself on a stool and moves her fingers over the guitar strings.
The lights are really bright—almost painfully bright. And everything echoes. The squeak in Lea’s stool, the man coughing in the audience, and the door slamming shut followed by the, “Oh, I’m sorry!” and the unexplainably loud shuffle that follows.
“Psst.” Lea is smiling at me.
When I look back out into the audience, I see Mom standing in the center of the aisle with her sign above her head, jumping up and down like she’s cheering on a toddler learning to walk. She waves the sign back and forth, her mouth in such a huge, wide smile I actually start laughing on the stage.
She made it. She’s late, and she almost missed it, but she made it.
Because when Mom makes a promise, she doesn’t break it. And she promised she’d be here.
I look back at Lea. She nods at me, I smile at her, and I play the first notes of our song.
The mom I remember would never have abandoned me. But that mom had two daughters.
Is that the difference? Maybe Mom can’t love me the same with Lea gone. Maybe being around me hurts her too much, because I’m sharp and brutally honest and easily annoyed. Aunty Ani says she needs time to grieve, but I think what she really needs is time away from me.
She lost her good daughter. Her kind, gentle, sweet girl who wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. And maybe having Lea around made it easier to have me around.
Hawaii feels like a punishment, but I can’t figure out if it’s because I was a bad daughter or a bad sister.
Maybe I was both.
I drop my chopsticks into the container and let it fall onto the sand. “I’m going for a walk,” I say stiffly.
Aunty Ani looks crushed from the inside out. It almost makes me feel guilty. “I was only trying—” she starts.
“I don’t need you to try,” I snap. I guess sometimes guilt isn’t enough.
I move across the sand, stepping closer and closer to the water’s edge until I feel the sea roll over my feet. I step over seaweed and broken bits of shell, going farther into the water until pretty soon my feet vanish and the ocean is up to my knees.
Lea would’ve loved it here. The ocean sounds like crescendos and
diminuendos, and all the flowers and birds are so vibrant and colorful that I can hear flutes and piccolos just looking at them. And she’d love that—the music Hawaii offers. I think she’d feel at home.
She’d appreciate being here more than I do. More than I ever could, even if my soul weren’t on pause. Because she loved life differently than I do. Her love was loud and colorful and so unbelievably hopeful.
It hurts so much to think about the life she doesn’t get to have. It hurts more than thinking about the moment she lost it.
The moment she called my name.
And for a flicker of a second, I wonder if maybe the wrong sister died that day.
I’m shaking—either from memories or the cold—so I get out of the water as fast as I can and walk all the way to the rock wall before turning around again.
When I reach Aunty Ani she’s standing with Kai and a woman I haven’t seen before.
They smile at me when they see me—Aunty Ani doesn’t.
“You must be Rumi,” the woman says, stepping forward to give me a quick hug. She smells faintly of honeysuckles. When she pulls away she lifts her sunglasses. “How do you like Hawaii so far?”
I start to point out that I’m here against my will—that I’m only in Hawaii because my mom needed a vacation from being a parent. But I pinch myself on the back of the arm the way Lea would have, to tell me to shut up and be nice.
“It’s hot here,” I say thinly.
She nods. “I’m Sun. I live next door. You already met my son, Kai.”
Kai lifts his chin. “Howzit?”
Aunty Ani doesn’t look the least bit surprised, but tries to feign it all the same. “You two met already? That’s good. Nice to have someone your own age fo’ hang out with, yeah?”
“I guess,” I say, looking around for the food I left on the ground because I suddenly see the benefit of having something to do other than make small talk with the very temporary neighbors.
If Sun notices my discomfort, she doesn’t let it stop her from carrying on with the conversation. “Must be hard not knowing anybody around here. Come by the hotel anytime you like, okay?” She tilts her head toward Palekaiko Bay. “We have our own little beauty parlor. I was a beautician before I got into hotel management. I’ll do your nails for free. A little ‘Welcome to the neighborhood’ present, yeah?”
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